We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Camila Pernisco. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Camila below.

Camila, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Towards the end of my first year of college in New York City, I became really invested in my writing practice. I was disentangling my private life, particularly family dynamics and my upbringing, and felt really inclined to document the active exploration. I pursued “Ruminations,” a print publishing project, made up of my personal essay writing, commissioned illustrations, and found material scans. Initially, I went about it with this intention of experimentation — of testing out a new medium, integrating my written voice and visual eye. However, after some distance from the project, I’m understanding it to be some sort of relic, like an archive not only of the work I was producing in that time frame, but these little obsessions, fixations, like of things as far out as California’s winds, my grandma’s breath, or my mom’s c-section scar. My brainwaves in snapshot.

It’s a pleasure to look back at work like this, especially because the writing is primarily nonfiction, that I get to connect those past fixations with my present circumstances. I’m finding a through-line in my perspective and passion.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a Californian writer and artist, based between Brooklyn, NY and my hometown of Los Angeles. On the east coast, I’m an undergraduate student focused on Literary Studies and Visual Studies at The New School. My practice consists of the intertwining of text and image. I like to work in print formats, through bookmaking and writing, but I also partake in the creation of video, collage, and more immaterial creative ideation. I’m fueled by my curiosities of the intimate, the confessional, the details that transform and individualize bodies of memory. I’m finding that through my practice, I’m able to fashion tools of self-inquiry, through active documentation and more experimental outlets — like poetic cootie catchers for instance!

As I move along in life, I’m hoping to become better acquainted with the self. As this feels like a long, almost infinite process, I imagine I’ll be spending the rest of my many days writing, thinking, and creating. Approaching post-grad life, I plan on continuing my education in curatorial studies. Though focused most often on the humanly intimate, I am inclined to consider more public aspects of private information and expression, particularly recognizing inquiry through a communal lens. I’d like to expand my own direction and dedication towards the honoring of contemporary arts and cultural communities. And, I’d like to do this through exhibition.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

When an artist (or any person really) knows themselves, it shows. Though a lot of our creative work can be this outlet for infinite expression, to be ungrounded would disorient too much. That being said, I have found that in my more recent years, creating ritual in my life and understanding the more nuanced, spiritual, emotional, and physical aspects of my life has grounded me most. Or rather, this pursuit and desire to be grounded, served as direction enough. To get to this point, I found myself very enamored by the works of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Master, who has a series of pocket-sized meditation books. Precisely, the book “How to Love,” has shaped me in my approach to connecting with the world around me, as well as myself.

My creative pursuits rely so heavily on observing — observing both the self and others around you. Taking note of dynamics can be very taxing. However, with texts backing as to why/how/what you’re seeing or feeling is happening, really help ground the work and observation. Books like “All About Love,” by bell hooks has done this for me as well.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is subconsciously creating an archive, a sort of tactile history and documentation, of yourself through your years. Your work always mirrors those thoughts, experiences, compulsions, expressions, and questions you have at a specific moment of time. You are your own keeper.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @camila.pernisco

Image Credits
Camila Pernisco